New Britain Police Credit New Gear For Building Revenue

NEW BRITAIN — — Police report that their new computerized license plate readers have helped bring in $30,000 in delinquent parking ticket fines during the first six months they have been in service.

The city this year bought automated license plate readers, which use infrared cameras connected to the computers inside patrol cruisers. The camera scans license plates of other cars using an optical character recognition system, and the computer alerts the officer driving the cruiser whenever the system identifies a targeted license number. New Britain uses the system to locate tax and parking ticket scofflaws as well as cars with suspended registrations.

Chief William Gagliardi said he plans to deploy three more of the units in patrol cars later this year. —Don Stacom